


When I need the shelter (I'll be knocking on your door)

by phalangine



Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Canon Compliant, M/M, introspective but introspective for john so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 20:44:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21087560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: John's tired. This isn't new.





	When I need the shelter (I'll be knocking on your door)

John’s shoes squeak as he trudges through the mill house. Every step he takes comes with a squelch. He doesn’t stop to wonder how much of the liquid is blood and how much is rain. He doesn’t look back to check whether his footprints are still muddy.

He doesn’t look at the wall and smile at the thought of Chas getting out a cloth and testily wiping away the hand prints John is leaving.

John doesn’t look at anything that isn’t his goal. All he sees is the door to the bath, the light switch, the faucet, the back of his eyelids.

The water is scalding hot and nearly up to his lips when the door opens and he hears Chas begin to curse.

“I’m fine,” John assures him. “Just tired.”

Chas doesn’t believe him, but he never does. He lets John get away with a lot, but it’s always by choice.

His hands are careful as he reaches into the dirty water and takes stock of John. John still hasn’t opened his eyes, so he can only guess at the murk he’s stewing in.

Chas’ quiet sound of disgust before he reached in told him enough.

“Any idea how much of the blood is yours?” Chas asks as he gently squeezes John’s upper arms, looking for tender spots and lumps and other signs of trauma.

He can’t feel the worst of it, but that’s no one’s fault. If Chas could reach into John’s skull and take stock of it the way he tests John’s body, he’d find all the things John doesn’t talk about.

It’s a good thing Chas doesn’t like magic. All that history and culture he carries make it sit uneasily with him. Another man might look at John and think it’s time to use magic to meddle with him instead of the other way around. It would have to be another man- Chas isn’t cruel, and he doesn’t do magic.

The closest he has is the book of recipes he inherited from one of his grandmothers. John had been worried when Chas first tried baking- not because he didn’t want to eat more of Chas’ oven disasters, but because that first batch of latkes could have destroyed him. If he’d made them wrong, if he’d made them right, there had been worlds of pain no matter what direction the endeavor went… In the end, Chas had done fine, and he hadn’t broken apart.

John isn’t good at putting people back together.

Chas, who was already a dad before Geraldine was terrifying and destructive twinkle in Chas’ eye, is better at it. That’s why he’s here, testing the integrity of John’s body. He can’t fix John, of course, but he can make life harder if John won’t fix himself.

It’s hard to say whether Chas knows John only fights because it makes Chas hold on tighter. He keeps holding, though, and that’s what matters.

Chas’ palm brushes John’s knee, and John flinches away.

“Fell on it,” he explains before Chas can worry too much. “Probably just skinned.”

“Probably,” Chas agrees. He changes his hold on John and lifts his leg out of the water anyway.

Without the water to keep him warm, the air hits him hard.

Only the places Chas touches him are safe.

“What did you fall on?” Chas asks.

“The road.”

“Your hands probably look like shit, too, right?”

“Probably.”

That’s all he has to say. Chas doesn’t expect him to be witty and fun when John is crashing in their tub. He gently returns John’s leg to the water, which rushes up around it, then retrieves John’s hands.

“Don’t go to bed without putting a cream on,” he says.

“Okay.”

“John.”

“What?”

“I’ll be on the couch. Come see me before you go to bed.”

_ Or I’ll yell at you.  _

John feels himself smile. Chas is never more than a breath away from a grumble.

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

And that’s it. Chas has checked John’s body for injury. He didn’t offer John any of the usual opportunities to make a lewd joke. He must have been worried.

Chas pulls away to leave, but John catches his wrist before he can.

“Stay.”

He can feel Chas’ confusion. John doesn’t like an audience when he’s hurting. He doesn’t draw comfort in being seen when he’s broken. He’s snapped at Chas often enough that Chas knows to expect teeth.

John takes a long breath in, then opens his eyes.

“I was gone a long time,” he tells the furrow between Chas’ brows. “Tell me what I missed.”

Chas nods and lowers himself down so he’s sitting properly.

“Geraldine likes cows now,” he begins. “Apparently, the brown ones are different from the black and white ones.”

He keeps talking, his voice soft and familiar and comforting. He’s like a warm blanket, is Chas, one that’s big enough to hold the world at bay.

He lets John hold onto his wrist like a child with a toy.

He helps wash John’s hair and rinses him clean of the dirty water. If John weren’t so tired, he’d have things to say about Chas manhandling him like this, but the bath washed away the adrenaline with the blood, leaving him so tired he has to lean on the wall when Chas steps away to grab a towel.

John lets himself be toweled off and led through the house to his bedroom. His bed looks small and desolate among the chaos, a place no one but John visits. He doesn’t tell Chas to leave and doesn’t ask to be brought along with him.

The towel hits the floor with a soft thump, and Chas doesn’t chastise him when John leaves it where it falls. He doesn’t look that much better than John does, and tomorrow, there will be a reckoning for John’s decision to go off on his own. It’s part of the deal John made when he brought Chas along- he gets the blanket, but he has to endure its ire sometimes.

Funny thing, that. John can read all types of anger; he knows which are threats to watch and which are merely noise. Chas is steeped in the threatening kind. Worse, it’s inconsistent. Maybe he’ll only shout. Maybe he’ll start a fight. Every other temper like that has been reason enough for John to be wary. 

Yet here he is, provoking Chas like he does Zed. There’s something to that, but damned if John can name it.

The mattress groans when John lets himself fall onto it. He sighs as his body finally doesn’t have to support itself.

Chas lies down beside him without asking.

John didn’t bother pulling the blankets down, and he knows he’s going to be cold soon. Chas is warm, though, and as he fits himself to John’s back, he lays his arm over John’s waist, bending his elbow so his palm rests on John’s chest.

He’ll probably wind up on top of John at some point in the night. He’s a restless sleeper, has been as long as John can remember, and John is well-accustomed to waking up with Chas more or less draped over him, his body heavy in sleep.

John doesn’t lay his hand over Chas’. They aren’t like that. He doesn’t know what they are like, but that isn’t it.

He’d know if they were.

Behind him, Chas sighs.

He’s already almost asleep, but John, exhausted as he is, knows he won’t be following any time soon.

It’s enough that John is here, though. The demons out in the world are out there, and he’s in here. He can breathe again.

Until morning comes, John can lie in his bed with Chas’ hand over his heart as if it’s something worth protecting, and he can let his restless thoughts bounce against his skull without ever having to wonder if maybe he does have a heart worth caring for.

He can, and he does.

If he has to dig his fingers into his palms to do it, then he will.

John doesn’t think too hard about Chas.

He knows better than that.

He knows he does.

**Author's Note:**

> guess who's back on her bullshit


End file.
